KARACHI, Jan 9: About 230 foreign natural-product chemists are scheduled to make deliberations at the biennial international symposium on Natural Product Chemistry, which is starting at a hotel on Saturday.

Another 300 local scientists and researchers belonging to different educational institutions and research organizations of Pakistan would also be participating in the symposium, comprising plenary and invited lectures and poster presentations.

The symposium is being organized jointly by the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry and Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research (MM&DR). Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology would also be sponsoring a session of the symposium on its campus on Jan 12.

Organizers had planned to get the major science event inaugurated by President Musharraf, but due to his other national commitments, now Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan had given his consent to be the guest of honour, said one of the organizers.

The chief guest at the inaugural session would be federal minister for science and technology and chairman of Higher Education Commission, Dr Attaur Rahman, while other personalities to speak on the occasion are; Prof Dr Wolfgang Voelter of Tubingen University, Germany, Nadira Panjwani, chief trustee of MM&DR, Dr Prizada Qasim, the vice-chancellor of the University of Karachi, Latif Ibrahim Jamal, Chairman of HEJ Foundation.

Dr M Iqbal Choudhary, Acting Director of HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, who is also one of the two organizing secretaries of the symposium, said that the symposium was held regularly to bring together the leading experts in the field of natural products sciences from all around the world.

The symposium was an attempt to develop appreciation of the economic and health benefits of natural product and forge global partnership for sustainable utilization of natural resources for common benefit of humanity and rapid development of the countries in the south, he added.

He said that 23 scientists from Bangladesh had confirmed their participation in the symposium, followed by those of Uzbekistan, Iran, Malaysia, Germany, Kazakhstan, France, China and others. Indian experts and scientists would be visiting the natural product symposium after a gap of six years, he added.

At the inaugural session, Dr Attaur Rehman would be awarded a gold medal by Prof Karstev Victor Georgierich, on behalf of International Scientific Partnership Foundation, Russia.

He said that special efforts had been made to bring young researchers from different developing countries to the major international event, so that they could learn from their rich experiences.

Some of the scientists expected to speak during the session include Ian Fleming (UK), Akira Tsuji (Japan), John H P Tyman (UK), Bohari Mohammad Yamin (Malaysia), Tahir N Majid (USA), Viqaruddin Ahmad (Pakistan), Nuzhat Ahmad (Pakistan), I C Dutta (Nepal), Bidyut Kanti Datta (Bangladesh) and Bassem El-Menshawi (Egypt).